Colin is one of the founding directors of Contract
Diving Services. He spent seven and a half years in the Royal Australian
Navy, joining at 15 years of age to become an electrical mechanic
on gunnery systems, multi generator switchboards and distribution
systems.
Later he changed over to become a naval clearance
diver assigned to various ships and operational diving teams throughout
the South Pacific region. After his honourable discharge, he immediately
commenced work in the offshore diving industry involved in oil and
gas exploration, and construction diving operations.
Colin has been involved with many construction projects over the last
20 years. He was mainly involved in Western Australian development
projects as detailed below. Colin is well known and respected in the
industry, at all levels of the workforce, for his project management
and supervision skills.
Contract Diving Services (CDS) was,
until its sale in June 1997 to American Oilfield Divers Inc., the
largest privately owned underwater intervention company in Australia.
It was founded in 1978 to supply the need for a more cost efficient
approach to underwater construction and engineering. Based in Perth,
the majority of the company's initial projects were in the north-west
of Western Australia.
However, in the two decades under the leadership of Colin
“Spud” Murphy and Anthony
“Dusty” Miller, CDS became the most active diving
company in Australia, both offshore and onshore. Operations were undertaken
Australia wide, including Bass Strait and the Timor Sea.
The company undertook work which included:
• All
facets of commercial diving including nitrox, deep air, and saturation
diving.
• The
manning of saturation diving support vessels for construction and
inspection related services.
• The
provision of highly trained personnel for specialist activities such
as non-
destructive testing and inspection of subsurface
and surface structures, with similar capabilities
in geotechnical investigation.
• Robotics
operations of two Work Class ROV’s and medium work class ROV's.
• The
operation of two Atmospheric
Diving System (ADS) “Newtsuits” complete with Launch
and Recovery Systems. With the addition of state-of-the-art technology,
under the management of “Spud”
and “Dusty”, CDS was able to provide manned or unmanned
operations to depths of 300m (1000ft).
• The
organisation of a consortium which oversaw the design, construction,
commissioning and acquisition for the RAN,
in conjunction with the Australian
Submarine Corporation
(ASC) of an entirely new air-portable, offshore-capable system
of submarine rescue, utilising a remotely operated rescue vehicle
(RORV) known as Remora
(see also InDepth
Project Management for more information
on Remora). Both Spud and Dusty were personally involved in the operational
trials of Remora and the selection of the original team of pilots,
technicians and managers.
Contract Diving Services’ head office supported all field operations
by supplying management, administration and communications.
Since the sale of CDS to American Oilfield Divers (name changed to
Ceanic Corporation) the company has again been resold to Stolt
Offshore, one of the worlds leading subsea intervention companies.
Both Spud and Dusty retired from Ceanic in 1998.
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